The city of Sfax

The city of Sfax, the second city and economic center of Tunisia, is a port city in the east of the country located about 270 kilometers from Tunis. Rich in its industries and its port, the city plays a leading economic role with the export of olive oil and fresh or frozen fish. Sfax is a business city and has some tourist sites, such as the medina and Thyna, despite the presence of phosphate processing plants.

Greater Sfax, with approximately 600,000 inhabitants, presents itself as a very extensive agglomeration (over 220 km2, i.e. as much as the agglomeration of Tunis, which has nearly five times as many inhabitants), flat and included in an urban fabric structured by cobweb communication axes. It is bordered to the east by the Mediterranean Sea and the beginning of the Gulf of Gabès.

Sfax is, like most Tunisian cities, of Berber origin formerly called Syphax (fortified place), then Roman named Taparura. In the 9th century the Aghlabids built the ramparts which gave the Medina its configuration. majestic. These ramparts exist today and have two well-preserved gates, Bab Diwan (west side) and Bab Jebli (east side). It came under the domination of the Norman Prince Roger of Sicily in 1148 before being reintegrated into the Muslim Empire by the Almohads in 1159. It experienced the revolt of Ali ben Ghdahem in 1864 opposing the Bey and that of 1881 to refuse the French protectorate.

We must not forget that Sfax is the country of our two great militants, assassinated by the colonial terrorist organization “La Main Rouge”, the great trade unionist and patriot leader Farhat Hached (native of Kerkennah) killed on December 5, 1952 and the responsible Destourian Hédi Chaker, native of Sfax, killed on September 13, 1953.